In a recent article, I covered research that examined whether the accusations that immigrants tend to be more left-leaning than the native population held water. The study found that second-generation immigrants did indeed tend to be more left-leaning, but that this didn’t have a material impact on the orientation of the country as a whole.
The study shone an interesting light on the political engagement of immigrants. A second study, from the University of Virginia, explains that there are now around 23 million eligible immigrant voters in the United States, and while they tend to be older than native voters, the younger voters are also highly active online, which can help to cajole their older peers into the polling booth.
Online engagement
The research shows that platforms like Twitter are crucial for younger immigrants to engage with politics. These platforms are used to access news from their local community and from their homeland alike. They also help with engagement in online and offline activism. What’s more, this is often especially so when individuals have no access to voting due to their immigration status.
The researchers cite the recent passage of the DREAM Act as a process that relied heavily on social media to help spread the word and mobilize action. The policy provides a right to stay to millions of undocumented migrants who came to the US as children. The authors believe that immigrants will play a similarly important role in the 2022 midterms.
The analysis revealed that young immigrants were heavy users of Twitter and tried to use their platform to educate their followers about political issues both in the US and overseas. They were particularly keen to target their ethnic and regional communities. These conversations weren’t confined to online, as many respondents revealed that they also triggered conversations with family members around the dinner table.
Offline behaviors
The researchers believe that these online behaviors can have significant consequences for how we behave offline too. For instance, they highlight how around a quarter of American adults say that they’ve changed their mind on a political issue due to what they’ve seen and read online.
What’s more, online political engagement is also strongly linked with the likelihood that a young person might vote or engage in other political actions.
The findings chime with previous work showing that young immigrants are helping to educate and mobilize their families and the wider community. Indeed, a survey of those who stayed in the US after the DREAM Act found that around 95% said they were actively trying to mobilize family and friends to vote.
This could have significant implications for upcoming elections, especially as the research mentioned at the start of this article suggests that many immigrants lean toward the left on political matters. This could have a crucial role to play in swing states.
